Random Allusions NotedA recent episode of Scandal included a reference to Helen's kidnapping and Menelaus's launching a thousand ships to rescue her.

On Gray's Anatomy, a patient was encouraged to accept help by citing the example of Odysseus, who in the course of his adventures accepted help from others.

The cartoon Mutts featured a foreign language professor explaining that veni, vidi, oinki is pig Latin.

DistractionsAdvances in technology threaten to overwhelm young minds to the point of distraction. Students' memories will atrophy because so much information is so readily and instantly available. Students will know a great many things but "have learned nothing." A diatribe against the Internet? No, Socrates worried about the development of writing and the Greek alphabet about 2,500 years ago.

The Chicago Tribune March 14, 2015 “10 Things You Might Not Know about Distractions”

Aldus ManutiusFebruary marked the 500th anniversary of the death of the Venetian printer Aldus Manutius, a scholar considered by many to be the grandfather of the liberal arts. Aldus was the first to publish Aristotle in the original Greek.

IB Latin Teachers . . .

ALL the IB Latin in One Place!

We, and especially authors Marianthe Colakis and Yasuko Taoka, have been sedulously working on a tight deadline as we prepare two new books that provide all the prescribed Latin readings with IB appropriate notes and background materials for the IB curriculum with exams beginning in 2016. If you'd like a set of samples from these books, fill out the request form.

The eyeVocab software leverages human memory for distinctive affective images* presented in isolation to radically improve the speed, depth, and permanence of second language vocabulary acquisition. Images are drawn from classical art, both western and eastern, from photojournalism and historical photography, great book illustration, and other sources.

Far more than a set of electronic flashcards, the multimodal vocabulary program facilitates a significantly deeper learning and retention. Students will readily master the frequent Vergil and Caesar vocabulary for the AP® Latin Exam and thereby devote far more of their study time and energy to reading and discussing De Bello Gallico and the Aeneid.

To participate in Bolchazy-Carducci Publisher sponsored webinars you will need high-speed internet access, computer speakers/headphones, current web browser, and the link to the webinar virtual meeting space, which is provided in your webinar invitation.

Webinars Make for User-Friendly Professional Development

Participation is free. All webinars provide opportunity for participants to ask questions. Learn lots—attend as many presentations as you can. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers provides documentation for your participation. You can share this with your supervisors. Many webinar presenters provide handouts, etc.

Pompeiiana

Newsletter

The Pompeiiana Newsletter created and edited by Bernard Barcio ran from 1974 through 2003. The newsletter offered a place for Latin students to publish comics, stories, games, and articles, and was a beloved resource for Latin teachers. In 2008, Barcio granted Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers the rights for all of the Pompeiiana Newsletter. B-C is proud to serve as curator for this archive and has made the issues available for teachers, students, and friends of the classics. Check out http://pompeiiana.blogspot.com/

The eTextbook trend is progressing and Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers is adding more eTextbook providers to offer a variety of eBook platforms for users. Currently Bolchazy-Carducci textbooks are available through GooglePlay, MBSDirect Digital, and Chegg. Each eBook platform offers a variety of tools to enhance the learning process. eBooks have the same content as our traditional books in print.

For direct links to purchase Bolchazy-Carducci eTextbooks, visit the title's product page. Just above the product description there is a list of the eTextbook providers and a direct link to purchase the eTextbook.

How do I purchase a B-C eBook?

Simple! When you are browsing through www.Bolchazy.com, any time you see GooglePlay or DirectDigital link, click on the link, and you will automatically be directed to a webpage where you can purchase the eBook.

Can I purchase direct from the distributor?

Yes! If you prefer, you can link directly to our eBook providers’ websites and search by title, by author, or by Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers to locate the title you would like to purchase. The GooglePlay ebooks store offers a preview of the book, including the table of contents and select pages.

What hardware is required?

You can read eBooks on a Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, Android, or a variety of eReaders.

Links of Interest

Preview Bolchazy-Carducci Titles

Preview Bolchazy-Carducci titles before you purchase using Google Preview.

AP® is a trademark registered and/or owned by the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this site.

Editor's Note

March Madness! If you haven’t been following our classics version of Martia Dementia, check out the piece in this issue. March is regularly a busy time for us at B-C—exhibiting our books at CANE and CAMWS, busily readying books for their launch at the ACL Institute, processing adoption materials, filling orders for the fall semester. My colleague Laurel Draper has been assiduously working on our two new volumes that provide all the Latin prescribed for the International Baccalaureate program. This issue contains an interview with Marianthe Colakis, who authored the background essays and notes for Lectiones Memorabiles: Volume I: Selections from Catullus, Cicero, Livy, Ovid, Propertius, Tibullus, and Vergil. We continue our “Meet the B-C Team” series this issue with an interview with customer service specialist Carolyn Bernardi.

When spring decides to arrive, enjoy its every bloom! May your spring break be relaxing and rejuvenating.

All best wishes from cold and snowy Illinois!

Don SpragueEditor

Martia Dementia

With 64 ancient authors going head to head in the first ever bracket from B-C, Martia Dementia is sweeping over the classics community. While it's too late to submit your bracket for prizes, you could still print off brackets and author descriptions to use in your classes. Challenge your students to learn about authors both known and unfamiliar. See who can pick the upset and who will reign supreme in your classroom. Don't miss out on next year's edition of Martia Dementia—follow B-C on Facebook or Twitter.

Meet the B-C Team

Interview with Carolyn Bernardi,

Customer Service Specialist and Bookkeeper

Over the course of 2015, we will be presenting interviews with each member of the Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers team.

DES: Give us a little overview of your time with B-C. How long have you been working for B-C? What attracted you to this job? What are your principal responsibilities?

CB: I have been with B-C for a little over two years. I feel things have come back full circle. When I first started my career 27 years ago, I was with a publishing company. Being a customer service representative and bookkeeper at B-C you may get me on the phone, placing your order, or find me taking care of the payables side of the company.

DES: What previous work and volunteer experiences have enriched your service at B-C?

CB: Before joining B-C, I was a customer service representative in the medical apparel industry for 23 years. Since college I have volunteered through my church and I have also supported autism causes.

DES: What are your favorite off-the-job activities?

CB: My favorite leisure activity would be photography. But a strong second is attending the theater. If you are into political satire, I highly recommend the Capitol Steps.

DES: What do you enjoy most about your work at B-C?

CB: I love our customers. They keep my job fun. I feel good when I know I have made a difference to someone.

DES: Is there a special anecdote about your time at B-C that you’d like to share?

CB: Talking about full circles again—in the course of my job, I was thrilled to reconnect with my high school Latin teacher and astonished to realize she is still teaching. Mirabile dictu!!

Editor’s Note: Carolyn references studying under Sherrilyn Martin, who continues to teach at Keith Country Day School, Rockford, IL. Dr. Martin served as a consultant for the Latin for the New Millennium series.

Tech Tip

I love to find ways for students to enrich their study of Latin with art and images. Animoto is a fun and easy way for students to create a video to display their findings. Animoto is very simple to use—it’s really just three steps: pick from one of the pre-made templates, upload your images, and add some text. Then, Animoto performs a little magic behind the scenes to produce the final video. In order to use Animoto, the students will need to set up a free account. Teachers are eligible to receive a free upgraded account and, using the code provided by Animoto, they can pass along this benefit to their students. Due to the streamlined interface and limited number of options, I have found that my students do not need any guidance to use this tool effectively. They catch on really quickly!

I’ve had my students use Animoto to summarize a historical or biographical reading or even to demonstrate their understanding of a Latin passage. The workflow for the students begins with doing the reading; then I ask them to home in on the essential ideas, points, or elements of their reading. Next, they search for one or two images that represent each of the main ideas of the reading and lastly they compile the video using Animoto. For me, the activity spans one homework assignment and approximately twenty minutes of class time. Students are proud of the results and enjoy watching their classmates’ finished videos. To get started, go to www.animoto.com and sign up for a free account.

Wrestling scene on the base of a kouros found in Athens and exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

√ Caesar the DayA good online source that examines various issues of ancient history is ancienthistory.about.com. You can sign up for a free weekly report. The current issue includes two pieces on Titus’s love affair with the Jewish princess Berenice, an article on the murder of Germanicus, and more than you thought you’d want to know about the Romans’ use of the xylospongium. Experience tells me your teenage boy Latinists will love that latrine piece. What especially caught my eye in this recent issue is the interview with Barry Strauss about his new book The Death of Caesar.

Denarius coin minted by conspirator Brutus in late summer–autumn 42 BCE. The mint moved with Brutus in northern Greece. L. Plaetorius Cestianus, magistrate. Bare head of Brutus right / EID • MAR, pileus between two daggers. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the Classical Numismatics Group.

√ Latin Best Practices and the Subjunctive

I try to follow Latin Best Practices on a regular basis for its insights on comprehensive instruction and other matters related to the classics classroom. This posting from Bob Patrick caught my attention and so I asked his permission to share it with the readers of eLitterae. If you’re not familiar with Latin Best Practices, check the group out: latin-bestpractices@yahoogroups.com.

Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive: Phuc Tran TedxDirigo

I am a huge fan of TED talks. This one is a 14 minute talk designed for Four Percenters. He says so right at the beginning (though, he uses other terms). He not only loves grammar (which normal people don't do), but he humanizes his love with stories. I think that because of the stories, normal students might actually pay attention to this for 14 minutes and be able to tell you why the subjunctive matters. They still won't be able to use it unless we are giving them lots of comprehensible input with it (much easier than talking about it).

One caution if you consider using this, this will have to be individual. In one spot he uses a four letter word which actually helps him illustrate indicative, subjunctive and imperative and it's hilarious. At another spot, he uses a Catullan like sexual reference. It's also funny since it's a play off of his own name and his struggles to find an American name, but you have to decide if you can use this with your students or not.

Point? Here is a way of using compelling stories in English to talk about grammar. He does it very well.

Is any war a just war? St. Augustine defined and defended the concept. According to him, the commandment of Jesus to turn the other cheek did not necessarily preclude killing and even torturing others in order to make the world a safer place so long as these acts were done with the right intentions and without hatred or revenge. Killing under these circumstances would not be a sin. Author Robert Emmet Meagher makes the case that just war theory, adopted by Christianity, and which promised the possibility of war without sin, is specious. Meagher's range and depth of knowledge, his insights and analyses, are breathtaking. He cites not only Augustine and Pope Pius XII, but also other religious leaders such as Bede, Aquinas, Erasmus, and Abelard. He cites military authorities such as Robert McNamara. And he cites Thucydides, Lactantius, Tertullian, Homer, Aristotle, Camus, Freud, and Obama—all with ease and authority. In Meagher's coverage of the history of "just wars," he discusses the Crusades, the Knights Templar, and the "war popes" and concludes that just war theory is a dead letter. It's irrelevant because it simply doesn't describe what happens in war—any war. The warriors, who are told that they may kill without sin, when they do kill, suffer moral injury as grave as any physical injury.

I was quite unsettled to learn that Pope Pius XII even went so far as to declare the pacifist who would not under any circumstances fight for his country an enemy of his country and of the human race. I had a phone conversation with Meagher to discuss, among other points, Pius's position regarding pacifists. Meagher said that, given the church's endorsement, this position was not so surprising. Meagher also pointed out that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, war is never justified; it’s always evil, but we may embrace the use of violence to protect the innocent. The Orthodox position is morally complicated; war at times can be judged as necessary but it is still evil. If a country engages in war, it is engaged in sin. As an example, viewing the atrocities Nazis did, taking out Hitler was necessary—still sinful but also forgivable. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian, would support the same position. In the book, Meagher does offer a suggestion for a path for the US to take to lead beyond war: He recommends that we do away with the all-volunteer army, which makes up less than 1% of our population. In our discussion, he pointed out that when we give up the citizen army, we go down the road that Hitler went down and noted that Eisenhower and Marshall said we lose the sense that we are all at stake in a war.

Meagher claims that our most recent wars would never have been authorized if 99% of us had "skin in the game," and were not reliant on proxies to do our fighting. I myself take issue with this suggestion. Past experience with a military draft has shown that, while some problems would be eased, there would be many other problems surfacing. Americans have always protested conscription, but I will highlight what happened relative to the Vietnam War. It was one of the most divisive issues of modern times. Draft resistors filed for conscientious objector status, claimed disability, went AWOL, or fled to Canada. By the 1970s, there were more conscientious objectors than draftees, and there were enormous backlogs of induction-refusal legal cases. Protests of 100,000 people were not uncommon. In any event, I do not believe that Americans would be willing to go back to conscription.

I highly recommend Meagher's book. As can be surmised by the preceding write-up, the book addresses important issues and deals with them in a learned and powerful way. It is also highly readable. For another selection written by Meagher, click on the link below to his piece titled "Honor and Legacy" in Classical Considerations.

Marie Carducci Bolchazy, EdDPresident, Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers

Classical Association of New England - CANE Report

Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, MA, graciously hosted the 109th meeting of the Classical Association of New England on Friday and Saturday, March 13 and 14. The school could not have been more welcoming. Indeed, Nobles granted students an early start to their spring break so that CANE could meet and have full run of the Admissions building and arts center on Friday the 13th. The building's atrium provided ample space for registration; another open area served as a gathering point for lunch; the theatre, where the full school gathers daily for a twenty-minute assembly, provided state-of-the-art facilities for presentations complete with two students who assisted presenters; and a set of classrooms welcomed a range of exhibitors. Attendees could also enjoy the art gallery housed in the same complex. The pièce de résistance of facilities proved to be the beautiful dining room, a LEEDS-awarded addition to the original school building, "The Castle." To ensure the smooth operation of the meeting, classics students served as volunteers, the Nobles classics faculty members, especially George Blake, Meghan Glenn, and Mark Harrington, were ubiquitous checking that all was going well, and the IT resource person for classics and theatre, Dawud Brown, was a godsend.

The B-C book display took full advantage of the space offered. The table featuring new books faced the open windows in order to catch attendees’ attention as they passed by.

The banquet is always a highlight of the CANE annual meeting as it celebrates the achievements of its members with the bestowal of the Matthew I. Wiencke Teaching Award. Former CANE president and retired Wayland High School teacher Jeremiah Mead graciously accepted the honor. He noted that Nobles considered Roxbury Latin, his alma mater, as its great rival while Roxbury Latin held that honor for Milton Academy. And, he thanked his colleagues for recognizing him.

Perhaps you’re wondering about how much snow remained in the Boston area. The Boston Globe noted that it would take until April for the several feet of snow to finally melt. And, Bostonians learned to beware the Ides of March as two more inches of snow on March 15 set an all-time record for cumulative snowfall—108.6 inches!

DES: Bolchazy-Carducci chose to divide the IB Latin curriculum for exams in 2016, 2017, and 2018 into two volumes. What inspired you to choose the volume with selections from Vergil and selections on love poetry and on women?

MC: I had taught AP Vergil for years, so I felt as though I knew the text of the Aeneid very well and understood the issues that make the epic more complex than it would appear to be at first glance. As for love poetry, I was fortunate enough as an undergraduate to learn from one of the great experts of Roman poetry: Steele Commager. He was truly brilliant in that he always made you believe that you were seeing the Latin as the Romans saw it. We translated, but the focus was on the arrangement of the Latin words. I also was pursuing higher education in Classics at the same time that women's issues were coming to the forefront as a field of scholarship. I've followed the field with interest since then.

DES: Authoring the background and contextual essays along with the notes for the volume was a significant undertaking. What in your schooling and experience did you find especially prepared you for doing so?

MC: An undergraduate and graduate education in the humanities, including Classics, is excellent preparation for all types of research work and scholarly writing. I'm fortunate in that I like to research. I love working in libraries. The New York Public Library and Butler University Library at Columbia University are superb resources. At the same time, the amount of material available online has grown so much more extensive and dependable that I was able to work away from libraries also. I'm old-fashioned enough to think of brick-and-mortar libraries as my go-to resource, though.

DES: Besides the time crunch, what was the most challenging aspect of this task?

MC: I had not read many of those passages for years, and a few—such as Lygdamus—I had not read at all. I had forgotten how complex some of those authors, such as Propertius, were. I had a new appreciation for what students find difficult when reading the authors for the first time.

DES: What part of the project did you most enjoy?

MC: Although it wasn't always easy to read them, I liked becoming acquainted with authors I had not read much of, or at all, such as the above-mentioned Lygdamus. I liked becoming familiar with Sulpicia, also. We have so little authentic writing by Roman women that it was a pleasure to see something written from a female perspective ("a" female perspective, not "the" female perspective!).

DES: Which of the authors for this text— Catullus, Cicero, Livy, Ovid, Propertius, Tibullus, and Vergil—is your favorite? Why?

MC: I've always been fond of Ovid. He was younger than the other "Golden Age" poets—Vergil, Horace, Propertius, Tibullus—so it was more of a challenge for him to write something fresh, especially in the well-worn field of elegiac love poetry. He did so much more than rehash old tropes, though! It was interesting to read his take on the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. All her worries—that her husband is dead, that he's found someone else, that they've grown into different people while he was away—ring very true.

DES: What advice do you give someone beginning their career as a high school Latin teacher?

MC: Take as many opportunities as you can to learn from other Latin teachers! If you're the only one at your school, find a way to connect with others online. Go to meetings and workshops, especially ACL institutes. You'll get more ideas than you can use in a year.

Marianthe Colakis has taught at Trinity College (Hartford), Queens College, Brooklyn College, and Davidson College. She is currently teaching at Townsend Harris High School in Queens, New York. Colakis holds a PhD in classics from Yale University. Much of her scholarly work has involved modern adaptations of classical myths and tragedies; her first book was The Classics in the American Theater of the 1960's and Early 1970's (University Press of America, 1993). In recent years, she has turned her efforts toward development of pedagogical materials. Colakis is author (with Gaylan DuBose) of Excelability in Advanced Latin: A Workbook for Students (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2003) and coauthor with Mary Joan Masello of Classical Mythology and More: A Reader Workbook (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 2007).

Forthcoming in June 2015. Click here to sign up for a free prepublication sample, available March 2015. Free prepublication samples will be sent via email. The sample for Volume I can be viewed here.

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Purchase as many Robert Emmett Meagher titles as you’d like at this special price. Line up your summer reading or stockpile for class prizes.